CHAPTER CXLVIII.

SHOWS HOW TODD HAD A VERY NARROW ESCAPE INDEED.

There was something in the tone of Crotchet that made the magistrate

confident he suspected something very peculiar, and he followed him

without a word.

The track or trail upon the ground was very peculiar, it was broad and

defined, and had turned in the direction that it went every little weed

or blade of grass that was within its boundaries. A number of decayed

leaves from the forest trees had likewise been swept along it; and the

more any one might look at it the more they must feel convinced that

something heavy had been dragged along it.

What that something heavy was, Mr. Crotchet had his suspicions, and they

were right.

"This way, your worship," he said, "this way; it goes right into this

hedge as nicely as possible, though the branches of these bushes are

placed all smooth again."

As he spoke, Crotchet began to beat the obstructing branches of a wild

nut tree and a blackberry-bush, that seemed, by their entwining arms, to

have struck up a very close sort of acquaintance with each other; and

then he suddenly cried out--

"Here it is, sir."

"What, Crotchet?"

"The dead 'un."

"Dead! You don't mean to say that one such is here, and that the dead

body of Todd is in the thicket?"

"Come on, sir, I don't think it is him. It don't seem long enough; but

here's somebody, as safe as possible, sir, for all that. Push your way

through sir: it's only prickles."

The magistrate did push his way through, despite the vigorous opposition

of the blackberry-bush; and then--lying upon its face--he saw the dead

body of a man.

The readers of this narrative could have told Sir Richard Blunt what

that body had been named while the breath of life was in it; but neither

he nor Crotchet could at first make up their minds upon the subject.

"Do you know him?" said Sir Richard.

"I guess only."

"Yes, and you guess as I do. This is Lupin, Todd's prison companion, and

the companion in his escape."

Crotchet nodded.

"I went to Newgate," he said, "and had a good look at him, so that I

should know him, sir, dead or alive; so I'll just turn him over, and

have a good look at his face."

With this, Crotchet carefully--by the aid of his foot--turned over the

body, and the first glance he got at the dead face satisfied him.

"Yes, your worship," he said, "Lupin it is, and Todd has killed him. You

may take your oath of that."

"Not a doubt of it: such is the result of the association of such men.

Todd has found him, or fancied he should find him, an encumbrance in the

way of his own escape, and has sought this wood to take his life."

"That's about it, sir."

"And now, Crotchet, we may make certain of one thing, and that is, that

Todd is not in this wood, nor in this neighbourhood either. I should

say, that after this deed, the first thing he would do would be to fly

from this spot."

"Not a doubt of that, your worship; but the deuce of it is to find out

which way he has gone."

"We must be guided in that by the same mode of inquiry, Crotchet, that

brought us here. We were successful in tracing him to this wood, and we

may be equally successful in tracing him from it. We must go into the

village of Hampstead, and give information about this dead body; and we

will make there what inquiries we can."

They were neither of them very anxious to remain in Caen Wood, after

discovering how it was tenanted; and in a very short time they were

mounted again, and went along the lane until they emerged upon Hampstead

Heath, and so took the road to the village, where Sir Richard gave

information to the authorities concerning the finding of the body of

Lupin.

There, too, he heard that a man answering the description of Todd had

passed through the village, and refused to partake some questionable

brandy, at a public-house, on its outskirts. This man was evidently

proceeding to London. Crotchet heard this information with great

attention; and when he and Sir Richard Blunt were alone, he said--

"I tell you what it is, sir--the country will never suit Todd."

"How do you mean, Crotchet?"

"I mean, sir, that, in my opinion, he has gone back to London again. The

country, sir, ain't the sort of place for such men as he is. You may

depend upon it, he only came to the little wood to get rid of Lupin, and

he has gone back to try and hide in London till the row is over."

"You really think so?"

"I do, sir; and if we want to find him, we must go, too."

"Well, Crotchet, of one thing I am pretty well convinced, and that is,

that he is not in this part of the country, for after the murder in the

wood, which he will be in continual fear of being discovered, it is not

likely he would stay about here; and so, as we have traced him a little

on the road to London, we may as well, for all we know to the contrary,

assume that he has gone there at once."

"Come on, then, sir," said Crotchet; "I feel's what you call's a sort of

a--Oh, dear me, what is it? A presentment--"

"A presentiment, Crotchet."

"Ah, sir, that's it. I feel that sort of thing that old Todd will try

and hide himself in some old crib in London, and not at all trust to the

country, where everybody is looked at for all the world as though he

were a strange cat. Lord bless you, sir, if I had done anything and

wanted to hide, I should go into the very thick of the people of London,

and I ain't quite sure but I'd take a lodging in Bow Street."

Sir Richard Blunt was himself very much of Crotchet's opinion regarding

Todd's proceedings, for his experience of the movements of malefactors

had taught him that they generally, after their first attempt to try to

get away, hover about the spot of their crimes; and it is a strange

thing, that with regard to persons who have committed great crimes,

there is a great similarity of action, as though the species of mind

that could induce the commission of murder from example, were the same

in other respects in all murderers.

To London, then, with what expedition they could make, Sir Richard Blunt

and Crotchet went, and although they made what inquiry they could, they

found no news of Todd. And now we must leave them for awhile, thrown

completely out in all their researches for the escaped criminal, while

we once more proceed to the house in Fleet Street, where we left Todd in

rather an uncomfortable situation.

It will be recollected that, locked in the grasp of the officer, Todd

and that individual had gone down with the chair through the opening in

the floor of his shop.

This was the first time that Todd had undertaken that mode of getting

into the cellars of his house; and when he found the chair going, he

gave himself up for lost, and uttered a cry of horror. It seemed to him

at that moment as if that were the species of retribution which was to

come over him--death by the same dreadful means that had enabled him so

often to inflict it upon others.

No doubt Todd's anticipations of being dashed to destruction upon the

stones below would have been correct had he gone down alone, or had

there been no one already immediately beneath the trap-door in the shop

flooring; but as it was, he fell, fortunately for him, uppermost, and

they both, he and the officer, fell upon the other man who had gone down

only a short time previous. That saved Todd; but he was terribly shaken,

and so was the officer, and it was a few moments before either of them

recovered sufficiently to move a limb.

The lives of those two depended upon who should recover his strength and

energies first. Todd was that man. Hate is so much stronger a passion

than every other, and it was under the influence of that feeling that

Todd was the first of the two to recover; and the moment he did so, the

yell of rage that he uttered really might have been heard in Fleet

Street. It was very indiscreet of Todd, but at that moment he thought of

nothing but revenge. His own safety became a secondary consideration

with him.

He grasped the officer by the throat!

At the moment that, by the feel only, for that place was in the most

profound darkness, Todd felt sure that he had the officer by the throat,

he knew that his triumph was certain. It would have been as vain a thing

to attempt to escape the chances of destiny, as to dream of avoiding the

grasp of that iron hand that now closed upon the throat of the

unfortunate officer.

It was just then, though, that the officer began to recover a little

from the shock of his fall. It was only to recover to die. Better for

him would it have been had he slept on in insensibility to the pangs

that were awaiting him; but that was not to be.

"Ah, wretch!" shrieked Todd, "so you thought you had me? Down--down to

death!--Ha!--ha!"

The officer struggled much, and dashed about his feet and arms, but all

was in vain.

"Ha!--ha!" laughed Todd, and that hideous laugh awakened as hideous an

echo in the dismal place. "Ha!--ha! I have you now. Oh! but I should

like to protract your death and see you die by inches! Only that my time

is precious, and for my own sake, I will put you quickly beyond the pale

of life."

The man tried to cry out; but the compression upon his throat of those

bony fingers prevented him. He had his hand at liberty, and he caught

Todd by the head and face, and began to do him as much mischief as he

could. There was for a few seconds a fierce struggle, and then Todd,

keeping still his right hand clasped about the throat of his victim,

with the left laid hold of as much of his hair on the front of his head

us he could, and raising his head then about six inches from the stone

floor on which it had rested, he dashed it down again with all his

might.

The officer's arms fell nerveless to his sides, and he uttered a deep

groan.

Again Todd raised the head, and dashed it down, and that time he heard a

crashing sound, and he felt satisfied that he had killed the man.

There was now no further use in holding the throat of the dead man, and

Todd let him go.

"Ha!--ha!" he said. "That is done. That is done--Ha! Now am I once more

lord and master in my own house--once again I reign here supreme, and

can do what it may please me to do. Ha! this is glorious! Why, it is

like old times coming back to me again. I feel as if I could open my

shop in the morning, and again polish off the neighbourhood. It seems as

if all that had happened since last I stropped a razor above, had been

but a dream. The arrest--the trial--the escape--Newgate--the wood at

Hampstead! All a dream--a dream!"

He was silent, and the excitement of the moment of triumph had passed

away.

"No--no," he said. "No! It is too real--much too real! Oh, it is real,

indeed. I am the fugitive! The haunted man without a home--without a

friend; and I have this night nor any other night any place in which I

may lay my head in safety. I am as one persecuted by all the world,

without hope--without pity! What will now become of me?"

A low groan came upon Todd's ear.

He started, and looked around him. He tried hard to pierce with his

half-shut eyes the intense darkness, but he could not; and muttering to

himself--"Not yet dead--not yet dead?" he crept to an obscure corner of

the cellar, and opened a door that led by a ladder to the floor of the

back parlour, where there was a trap door, under which the large table

usually stood, and which he could open from below.

In the parlour Todd got a light, and feeling then still disturbed about

the groan that he had heard below, he armed himself with an iron bar

that belonged to the outer door, and with this in his right hand, and

the light in his left, he crept back again to the cellar.

A glance at the two men who lay there was sufficient to satisfy him that

they were no more; and after then taking from them a couple of pairs of

pistols, and a small sum of money, he crept back again to the parlour.

As he did so, he heard St. Dunstan's clock strike the hour of four.

"Four!" he said. "Four. It will not be light for nearly two hours yet,

and I may rest myself awhile and think. Yes, it is necessary now that I

should think; for I have time--a little time--to do so, and much, oh, so

much to think of. There's some of my own brandy, too, in the parlour,

that's a comfort."

The fire was still burning in the parlour grate. Todd raked the glowing

embers together with the iron bar, and then he took a good draught at

the brandy. It revived him most wonderfully, and he gave one of his old

chuckles, as he muttered--

"Oh, that I could get a few whom I could name in such a position as I

had yon man in in the cellar a short time since. That would be well,

indeed. Ha! I am, after all, rather lucky, though."

A sharp knock come, at this moment, at the outer door of the shop, and

Todd sprang in alarm to his feet.